MakeUseOf

This is the most underrated back-to-school purchase for any student

Jonathon Jachura — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:00:17 GMT

At 9 a.m., campus Wi-Fi is fine. Nobody's on it. Then the whole building comes back at night, and by 10 the same network can't hold a video call together for two minutes straight. The fix costs about $20, and it isn't a signal booster or a mesh kit. It's a USB-C to Ethernet adapter and a patch cable, plugged into the jack that has been sitting in the dorm wall the whole time.

The $599 MacBook did something I didn't expect: it made Windows laptops obsolete

Brandon Miniman — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 10:00:12 GMT

I used to be an enthusiastic Windows user going all the way back to Windows 95. I've owned multiple Windows laptops and have even custom-built multiple PCs over the years.

I turned off YouTube's worst features and my feed actually became useful again

Shaheer Khan — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 23:00:12 GMT

I can't recall how many times I've opened YouTube to research or study and ended up falling into the algorithm trap that sucks up at least half an hour of my work time. I really need to break this habit — a couple of videos are fine, but YouTube completely immerses you in its never-ending feed.

I reclaimed 11 GB on my Windows PC without deleting a single file

Afam Onyimadu — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 22:00:12 GMT

My C: drive was running out of free space, but the files I had on it did not match reality. I turned to the traditional cleanup tools but didn't get great results. However, after running a single command, I recovered 11GB of storage that I didn't think existed.

Samsung's Tizen and LG's webOS both claim the best smart TV — a third one beats both

Christine Persaud — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 21:00:12 GMT

Smart TV OSs are a window into streaming services and other apps. If you rely on the smart TV OS built into your display instead of a streaming box or player, you want it to be intuitive, afford access to all the apps and streamers you want, and run efficiently. The major smart TV OSs include Tizen (Samsung), webOS (LG), Google TV (various brands), Roku (Roku and various brands), and Fire TV (Amazon and various brands). Other less popular ones include Vizio's SmartCast and Hisense's VIDAA. Which one is the best smart TV operating system?

6 paid subscriptions your student email can get you for free (or ridiculously cheap)

Mahnoor Faisal — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:30:12 GMT

Similar to how practically everything in the world is getting more expensive with every passing day, the cost associated with being a student has risen too. Tuition has gotten more expensive, higher gas prices make commuting pricier, and even the little expenses you barely think about can add up surprisingly quickly over a semester.

I gave up on Phone Link years ago — trying it again in 2026 shocked me

Shaheer Khan — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:00:12 GMT

If there's one thing I've learned over the years as a Windows user, it's to discard most first-party applications. OneDrive, Copilot, and similar services have only hogged my system resources and forced their way onto my system. I used to think the same about Phone Link, and the last time I used it was years ago — it was terrible and very inconsistent.

These free apps have the Windows features Microsoft forgot to build

Pankil Shah — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:30:12 GMT

Windows 11 is a $140 OS, and yet, there are things it still can’t do. And no, I’m not talking about anything obscure or niche. I’m talking about basic, everyday tools that most people actually need. A password manager, a storage analyzer, a file converter, desktop widgets — there's a lot that's missing. Microsoft just hasn’t bothered with most of these, which means most of us have to rely on third-party apps to fill the gap.

8GB of RAM on Windows 11 works — but only if you're willing to cripple your PC

Shaheer Khan — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 19:00:12 GMT

8GB RAM. Just these two words are enough to trigger a firestorm in the PC community, because most people say the floor for RAM has increased in 2026 and 8GB of memory has no place in a modern Windows 11 machine. The same configuration would be fine for Linux or even macOS on the MacBook Neo, but questionable on Windows 11 because the OS is so resource-intensive.

Cat5e is much faster than most people give it credit for

Gregory Gibson — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 18:30:12 GMT

Now that Cat6, Cat6a, and multi-gigabit Ethernet are readily available and cheap, Cat5e feels like a cable category that should have retired years ago. My homelab still runs on Cat5e, mainly because I bought a spool years ago and don’t want to waste it.